Venezuela’s Culture Compared to Colombia’s Culture
Believe systems and traditions shared by a group of people are clearly defined the huge meaning of country’s culture. This culture could be transmitting easily between the neighboring countries. Obviously, those countries shared a lot of believe and tradition which is consequently defines the meaning of the country’s culture. However, Venezuela and Colombia are neighboring countries and even more both of them had discovered by Spanish explorers. So, the culture in both of them, at first glance, obtains many similarities, but in the other hand, there are a few differences.
As long as Venezuela and Colombia were Spanish colony, ethnic group is one of the main aspects that both of them are shared. In Venezuela, Mestizo group, (Spanish and Portuguese term refer to Latin people of mixed European and Amerindians), forming the majority of Venezuela’s population, about 67% beside other major groups like Whites who forming 21% of the population and minority of African Blacks and Native Americans. In Colombia, Mestizo comprises 55 percent of the population and the rest are a combination of Whites, African Blacks, and Native Americans.
Beside the similarity in ethnic group, Spanish is the first official language in Venezuela and Colombia as well as English, recently, has become the country’s second official language. However, Venezuela’s oil boom has also contributed to an increase English usage especially in the large cities. Same as in Colombian lager’s cities, English, particularly used by the upper class, but it is not commonly understood or spoken.
Another area of similarities between Venezuela and Colombia involve marriage. Marriage in Venezuela has a few legal restrictions unless the person marries someone of same sex and of illegal age. However, it is expected that people in Venezuela marry others of their same or higher social class including racial status. Also, groom and bride are often preferred to do the marriage ceremony in Catholic Church with their families. Likewise, in Colombia, the upper-middle and upper classes are encouraged to marry within their own class. On the other hand, people from lower and middle classes prefer to marry someone outside of their class. For instance, mestizos and blacks prefer to marry into white families. Also, Because of high expenses of marriage, Colombians from lower middle class may choose whether civil marriage or consensual marriage. Meanwhile, Upper class people, and people who live in urban areas are often married in the Catholic Church.
Beside the similarities between both of them, they do have differences. One difference that is most notable is the main export item. Since Venezuela considered as the fifth biggest member of OPEC by production, Venezuela’s most profitable export item is oil. Oil is largely exports to the main trading partner United States beside other major trading partners like Netherlands, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Brazil, and Colombia. On the other hand, In Latin America, the two largest coffee producers are Brazil and Colombia. Colombia produces about 12% of the coffee in the world, so coffee is the main export item as well as other major export items like cut flowers, emeralds, and leather goods. However, those items mainly export to United States, Germany, Japan, The Netherlands and Switzerland.
Other area of differences is the Medical and Health Care System. Venezuela’s health-care system has a large array of public and private hospitals and clinics. Those public and private hospitals are opened to public whether upper, meddle or lower class. In contrast, health care in Colombia, recently, has been improved but this improvement has occurred mostly in upper class and middle class urban areas. In poor areas, people usually have limited access to the medical treatment and health care.
In conclusion, cultural differences manifest themselves in different ways and differing levels of depth. Venezuelan culture and Colombian culture shared many similarities and were different in other ways. However, the most three similarities they shared were ethnic groups, Official language and marriage. Meanwhile, trade and medical health care systems were sound pretty different from one another.
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